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The Do's and Don'ts of a Mailing List

Email Lists and Mailing lists are the backbone to a successful marketing program

Email lists and mailing lists form a very integral part of any email marketing campaign. Such lists are extremely useful as they can help you turn your venture into a profitable investment. With time, you can expect people in your list to be loyal to you. However, for a successful email marketing campaign, there are dos and don’ts that you should keep in mind when you’re building and maintaining an email list.

Do's

Use a double opt-in email list

With the amount of spam floating about the Internet growing exponentially, Internet service providers and email service spam filters have taken several measures to deal with this menace. As a responsible email marketer, you would do well to develop a double opt-in list that confirms recipients really want to receive your email. A double opt-in list is the best way to create a high-quality email list. Moreover, it will ensure that all your email communication passes the first, and often biggest, hurdle – getting into your prospect’s mailbox. If you’re using Benchmark Email, you can take advantage of their nifty double opt-in list building tool.

Segment your email list

Leverage the greatest advantage of email marketing campaigns—targeted communication. Compared to other email marketing services, Benchmark Email empowers you to divide lists according to demographics, customer likes and dislikes and much more. This is extremely useful if you have a large and diverse customer base because it helps you to speak to each target group in a tone and manner that will appeal to them. People appreciate a marketer who takes the trouble to speak their language.

Clean your email lists

An often forgotten email list management practice is cleaning. While it seems like a low priority item that you can put on the back burner, it’s something every email marketer must invest some time in. If you use Benchmark Email, the powerful analytics tools help you identify soft and hard bounces so you know which emails you should be taking off your lists to push those open rates up. After all, a clean list not only saves time, it also saves money.

Don'ts

Don't rent or buy email lists, ever!

As a responsible and credible email marketer, this is one thing you should absolutely, categorically, definitely never do, unless of course you want to be labelled a spammer. While buying or renting lists may seem like a time-saving strategy in the short-term, it will most certainly come back to haunt you later. The idea of a good email campaign is to reach out to people who will buy your products or sign up for your services. Bought and rented lists often give you a bunch of prospects who will probably never open your email. Worse still, your domain may end up being blacklisted by email and internet service providers rendering your entire email campaign futile. And if you use a reputed email marketing service like Benchmark Email, you won’t even be allowed to use a bought or rented list.

Don't forget to put a subscribe box on your website

Make it easy for folks to opt in for your email campaigns, prominently place a subscribe box on your website so visitors can sign up if they see value in the information you are providing. Benchmark Email offers an easily customizable signup form that automatically adds the addresses to your email list. Needless to say, it’s a great way of building a high-quality email list.

Don't lose patience

Email list building and management can be a time-consuming task initially. However, once you’ve put some processes in place, you’re sure to reap the benefits of higher open rates, better responses and a healthier bottom line with a well-maintained email list.

With these simple tips, you’ll be well on your way to building a high-quality list and crafting a highly successful email campaign.